If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Hey Michael, I know I'm not really anybody on this forum but I would like to request something of you.

You've been so far one of the few who have all the leads in recent stories. So I was wondering if you could somehow peer into just how much of Unreal Engine 3 really works on Linux. Maybe an interview with Ryan Gordon (he was the porter for UE3 right?)

Since Dungeon Defenders, and now Painkiller are going about Linux support, it makes me wonder. Just how many more UE3 games might we see coming to Linux? As far as I know, Unreal has definitely NOT made their Linux version public in any way. Please do correct me if I'm wrong though.

Since the market definitely has loads of UE3 games, if UE3 really has a proper Linux version then we might see a lot more games within the year offering Linux support. Also, would be cool to know if at any time UE4 will support Linux. I have my eyes only on Unity at the moment since they're more open minded with supporting various platforms. Shiva3D looks promising too, but it's been 2 years since they announced a Linux version of their editor.

Cool! Thanks for sharing. Looks worrisome that only Ryan is handling the Linux port. Seems like Epic itself isn't interested at all. Whats more worrying is that it seems to be more challenging for Ryan with UE3 than with UE2. Probably means that UE4 for Linux won't be happening this century :/

Comment

With Steam on Linux and Steambox and all, I think Epic will put Linux into consideration once again. But it might be a little too late for UE4, given that UE4 games shouldn't be too far off the horizon. Then again, when having access to the source code and no real games running on it yet, it probably isn't as difficult to port as it could be. So there is still a fair chance that at least some of the later UE4 games will have built-in Linux support.

Comment

Since Dungeon Defenders, and now Painkiller are going about Linux support, it makes me wonder. Just how many more UE3 games might we see coming to Linux? As far as I know, Unreal has definitely NOT made their Linux version public in any way. Please do correct me if I'm wrong though.

There are two problems at play. Well three, maybe. Four? Let me come in again...

UnrealEngine isn't a thing you just buy once and have everything. First, there's two major versions of the software: UDK (a cut-down version for indies to play with) and UnrealEngine 3. UDK games are basically not going to get ported to Linux.

Next, there's the branch thing. UnrealEngine isn't something you just buy once and get a final product. You get access to the UE3 repository, which is an ever-changing resource (much like any other actively worked on source code repository) - the norm is that your game forks off a snapshot of the UE3 code base, and you start developing your game from there. Updating your game to a later source snapshot could be potentially HUGE amounts of work, depending on how heavily you've customized your fork.

There's no official UE3 port to Linux. What exists is one shipping product, Dungeon Defenders, with its own local port to Linux based on a previous fork of an older revision done by Icculus (but never committed to mainline UE3). So it's not just a case of every UE3 game developer just hitting recompile - they need to rebase their game against something similar to the Dungeon Defenders version of UE3, and patch in DD's Linux port locally, then fix it up so it all vaguely works. The amount of work involved may or may not be huge, depending on a number of factors.